Digital Rights Management (DRM) has received a lot of attention as a result of the ease with which digital data can be re-distributed ad infinitum without corruption. DRM systems have thus attempted to implement methods for encrypting music and applying certain digital rights to that piece of media with the express intent that you can not copy it, re-distribute it, or play the file without the right from the copyright holder to do so. For example, one system has a unique electronic serial number assigned to each disk. This serial number can be and is used as a key to secure and unlock digital music with its associated rights. For example, a particular digital sound file can be secured using the serial number on a portable disk for a portable disk player, so that the song can only be played when that disk is inserted into the system thus preventing re-distribution of the song. One unique challenge, therefore, is creating thousands of disks, or more, that have “secure” music that is secured using the unique serial number on each disk for retail sale. This process has been designed so that you cannot copy protected music, but a company that is part of the music distribution chain still needs to be able to copy with license from the copyright owners in an attempt to distribute and/or sell secure music on a specific type of media. To a company that manufactures storage media and related storage devices, for example, this is relevant because the company could sell music that can only be played on that company's equipment or media. This is also a relevant issue with respect to the process used to create secure music disks for others to market.
Storage media, and in particular re-writeable storage media, is at times shipped from a storage media manufacturer/distributor with pre-determined data already stored thereon. For example, the data may be one or more software programs, one or more data structures, one or more data files, and/or the like. Likewise, the re-writeable storage media may be a magnetic or optical in nature, and may be a tape, a disk, or the like. Moreover, the storage media may be read-only, write-only, read-write, or the like, as appropriate.
Once the storage media is shipped with the already-stored data, though, such storage media is quite obviously out of the hands of the manufacturer/distributor, who is then powerless to prevent anyone from making changes to the stored data on the storage media. Accordingly, it is oftentimes useful after shipment of the storage media to determine whether the data on the storage media has changed as compared with the originally shipped data. In addition, during production of the storage media with the data thereon based on a master version, it is useful at various points during the production process to confirm that the data on the storage media has not changed as compared with the data copied from the master. Accordingly, a benchmark can be provided that is placed on the storage media and that is closely tied to the master.
Tying these issues together, there are many references to secure digital rights management, but none that specifically address the problems associated with the mass reproduction of authenticated secure digital music. Some proposed systems refer to unauthenticated secure digital music that you distribute, then for which the user later applies for and/or pays for a license file to authenticate the music file. It would thus be advantageous to provide a robust solution for mass reproducing authenticated secure digital data such as music data, with license rights already in place.